Writer, activist, and lawyer Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno spoke on Monday, October 22 at the Human Rights Program about her new book, There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia. As the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Maria is at the helm of the leading U.S. organization fighting to end the war on drugs domestically and beyond. Her new book is a narrative non-fiction account of the rise of paramilitaries in Colombia in the late 1990s. With close ties to the cocaine business, the paramilitaries carried out a violent expansion campaign committing atrocities against thousands of people. The story is told through the perspective of three characters—a fearless activist, a dogged journalist, and relentless investigators—whose lives intersect in the midst of this drug-fueled cycle of terror.
This talk was co-sponsored by the Criminal Justice Policy Program, the Harvard Human Rights Journal, and the HLS Advocates for Human Rights.